14 DAY TRIAL // Ubuntu Kylin 14.04 LTS, the Chinese Linux distribution developed in collaboration with Canonical, has been received very well in China and the first OEM partner for this particular Ubuntu flavor has been announced.
One of the countries that have been affected the most by Microsoft's decision to stop the support for the aged Windows XP is China. It's estimated that around 70% of the computers in this country are running Windows XP, and this number includes numerous systems used by local administration offices. This makes them vulnerable to viruses and other forms of malware. The Chinese government is looking for solutions to this problem and they have said that users should start considering Linux options before it's too late. A few attempts have been made so far by the authorities to have their own Linux-based operating system that could replace Windows XP, but those efforts have failed.
This is where Canonical and Ubuntu Kylin come into play. This new flavor of Ubuntu is being built by China Software and Integrated Chip Promotions Centre (CSIP), National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), and Canonical. It's mostly developed in that country and it's specifically designed for that culture.
“Downloads from the Ubuntu Kylin community sites in China are continuing to gain momentum, with over three million people downloading Ubuntu Kylin in the first 12 months. The initial adoption of Ubuntu Kylin 14.04 LTS, launched in April, has been phenomenal, with over one million additional new downloads.”
“On that note, I’m pleased to announce that our first Ubuntu Kylin OEM partner is HP and we’re working closely together on some great products. HP brings a wealth of experience and support for open source on the desktop, having already shipped millions of HP systems preloaded with Ubuntu worldwide,” said Jon Melamut, vice-president for Professional & Engineering Services at Canonical.
This is not the first edition of Ubuntu Kylin. The development of a Chinese distribution based on Ubuntu started with the 13.04 cycle, which was a little over a year ago. It seems that both Canonical and its partners in China foresaw the end of Windows XP and prepared accordingly.
As it stands right now, Ubuntu Kylin is probably the only centralized alternative to Windows XP. There are a few other Chinese distros out there, but they don't have the resources commanded by Canonical. It's very likely that Ubuntu Kylin will be the number one go-to system in China in the next few years.